This “everybody has talent” vs. “no they don’t” debate is interesting, to say the least…
I still say it’s cruel to encourage people to kid themselves into believing they have talent when all they have are simple abilities. One of the cruelest statements is, “You can be anything you want.” No, you can’t. What you want might be totally unrealistic. Better that an individual tackle tasks that he has a realistic chance of succeeding at than those he is sure to fail at. So when you say everyone has talent, there are those who will believe you and attempt something for which they have little or no talent, fail, and get frustrated. Is that what you want?
Even if we define “talent” very narrowly as meaning “
special degree of ability,” I still think the chances are very high that everybody has
some sort of talent. It’s just that some may never find theirs. For instance, perhaps an impoverished tribesman in the Amazon is an absolute natural at building a house of cards that would break a world record…insofar as having the natural ability goes, he would have a “talent.” But…he may never ever find this, given that he is not in the position to find it, or perhaps he will never take an interest in it. By this definition, literally only those with extreme handicaps could be said, for certain, to have no talents. Because even if you do mean that only “special” things are talents, the only way we could reasonably conclude that any given person literally had no talent would be if that person had tried his hand at
every single specialized talent known to man and had proven a dud at them
all (as even the most obscure of tasks can conceivably be talents if someone excels at them in a way that is uncommon or special). I dare say that very few people, if any, have taken such an extensive journey of self-discovery.
And, until a person has made such an exhaustive journey, I would think it a bit cruel to count them out in terms of their having any talent…it’s hypothetically
possible for a person to have no talents by that definition, but I can only imagine how bleak an existence I would have if I was told (and believed it) that I almost certainly had no talents whatsoever, not even one that I simply hadn’t discovered yet. If having talent is not important to you, that’s fine, of course, but as for me I’d rather live my whole life knowing that there was hope that I had talent even if I’d never
found it, than believing that I almost certainly had none. Because most people I know seem so
clearly talented at
something, if I concluded that I had none, none whatsoever, not even any that I hadn’t found yet (and might never find), I would feel that I must have been a “fluke,” or “broken.” I’m not saying that would be a proper way to see myself, but it would be difficult not to… But maybe I am simply disproportionately surrounded by people with
obvious talents…
Don’t get me wrong, I do believe it’s wrong (though perhaps not outright cruel, depending on how good the intentions are) to mislead someone to believe they have talent in a field they don’t have. But the alternative is
not to tell them they have (or probably have) no talents whatsoever. Instead, the better option is to gently encourage them to explore other possibilities until they happen upon their talents, if they seem so inclined, while reminding them that, while they may never find their talent (as there are millions of things you could be talented at, and no one could live long enough to explore them all, so some people might not find theirs in this life), if pursuing their talents is important enough to them, then it will be worth the journey of searching.
To sum all that up, it’s possible that everybody has talent (even by the strict “
special” ability definition"), but that some will never discover theirs. Because it’s possible to miss out on finding your talent, you’d do well to not base your happiness on *finding *it. But it’s perfectly commendable to
search for it, and I think it would be unwarranted and perhaps cruel to tell someone that the search is useless.
Now, if by “talent” you get even more narrow and say that only
discovered ability counts, then you would have a point, but if you get that narrow, then it would mean that even the greats such as Mozart, etc., were only talented because they happened to be in situations where they discovered their abilities, which is not the way most people would use the word…
One more thing: Just because everybody had talent wouldn’t diminish the meaning of the word. Because not everyone has talent at the same
things, and it’s the differences that make the talents special.
Blessings in Christ,
KindredSoul
